Give Me Courage: The inspiring true story of survival and escape

by Lenuta Hellen Nadolu

Some nights Auntie Ana takes me to a movie, often an Indian one. They’re cheap and the Communist government likes the fact that they’re not full of western propaganda.

To prove he was slandering me, I am taken to a gynaecologist to obtain a virginity certificate, quite a common practice in Romania at the time. The boy is sentenced to a year in prison which he is spared only after his parents approach my father to apologise for their son’s behaviour and beg for forgiveness.

I guess that he’s at the end of his shift. The attendant jumps up from his chair as a sign of respect to the doctor.

My intellect is the gift I treasure most. But it isn’t the only one I possess. In a country that boasts of having the most beautiful women in Europe, I am considered a prize, with my fine-featured face, hazel eyes and long jet-black hair that turn heads on the streets of Bucharest. If I have one complaint, it is that my skin has the noticeably olive tint from the Mediterranean side of my father’s lineage.

There is a beauty prize and I win it. Everyone tells me how lovely I am: my black hair, my hazel eyes, my olive skin. But I’m not interested. All I want to do is prove my worth as an intelligent woman.

On a beautiful crisp morning in September 1973 I arrive back in Bucharest by train to collect my clothes before moving to Cluj. My mother is waiting on the platform. She gives me a radiant smile. Her daughter has passed the university entrance exams. She tells me that when she was a girl she would stand in front of the big gates of Babes-Bolyai University, that huge enticing campus near Mama Draga’s house, watching students coming and going. Now her daughter has earned a place there, the first in my grandmother’s family to reach so far. My free education as well as my hard work have made this possible and I feel grateful to the government. Everyone in the neighbourhood has heard my wonderful news. It is rare for a working-class girl like me from a poor area such as Ferentari to pass the university entrance examination. I am my family’s pride and joy.

Of course, lots of women would be happy to be me. Marriage to a foreigner has many rewards. For a start, it entitles you to a passport, the dream of many Romanians. Some girls who date foreigners are also informers for the Securitate, but others are so desperate to leave our Communist paradise that they aim to fall pregnant to make the men marry them. This tactic often fails and the children end up in orphanages along with the other unwanted Romanian boys and girls. Others live with a foreigner while waiting for their marriage to be approved by the government. I realise I have now joined them. We are labelled sluts and whores, insults we will bear as long as we live in Romania.

That would be a practical option, but I’ve never wanted to become a doctor. It isn’t easy to go against your heart’s desires. Philosophy and law were what I wanted to study.

In my parents’ house, he continues to abuse me, calling me a slut who has brought shame on my family. ‘You have disgraced yourself. You should be ashamed.’

I lean over to serve him before taking my own seat. ‘Your top is too low,’ he suddenly snaps. ‘And your skirt is too short. One day they’ll meet in the middle and you won’t be wearing anything at all.’ ‘It’s the fashion,’ I say. I’m beginning to realise that I’ve escaped one web of rules only to find myself enmeshed in another.